Research proves that dogs can actually see in colour

A new team has set out to dispel the myth that dogs can only see in black and white and have come up with research that proves that they are able to see a range of colours. They have proved that not only do dogs have a limited colour range but they also use this to distinguish between objects and select certain items from a line up

Dog trainers would avoid using coloured objects when training pets to do certain tasks but these findings could redefine how animals are trained and what they are actually capable of learning and being trained to do.

The team who led the project were Russian scientists from the Laboratory of Sensory Processing at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

This work was built on previous research done in America from the University of Washington which found that while humans have three cones that detect colour, dogs actually have two. They can distinguish between blue and yellow but not red and green.

The researchers used a number of tests using different colour papers and meat hidden inside boxes.

They commented on their findings by saying:

'We show that for eight previously untrained dogs colour proved to be more informative than brightness when choosing between visual stimuli differing both in brightness and chromaticity.

'Although brightness could have been used by the dogs in our experiments, it was not.

'Our results demonstrate that under natural photopic lighting conditions colour information may be predominant even for animals that possess only two spectral types of cone photoreceptors.'